Amazon Targets The Likes Of Digital Ocean And Linode With Lightsail VPS Service

Given the incredible number of Web services Amazon offers, we knew it’d just be a matter of time before it ushered in its own VPS solution. That happens right now, with Lightsail, a solution that targets the likes of Digital Ocean, Linode, OVH, among others.

Amazon promises a lot of things with its Lightsail service, none too dissimilar from its competitors. It offers snapshots at $0.05GB/mo, and offers similar package pricing, too. What doesn’t seem evident at this point is whether or not Amazon charges on a per-hour basis like Digital Ocean and Linode do, which might turn some away since being able to spin up a server for mere pennies to test something quick is a real treat.

On the topic of pricing, Amazon at least matches most of its competition, but it doesn’t come ahead. The packages, seen above, come close to being 1:1 with Digital Ocean, with the only difference I can spot being that DO doubles the number of cores in its $20 and $80 packages (2 and 4, respectively). Where Amazon does have an advantage is that Lightsail sits within its own ecosystem, so those already using the company’s other solutions might still find the new service to be the best fit.

Amazon seems to be focusing on Amazon Linux 2016 and Ubuntu as the main OS deployments for Lightsail, but CentOS, Debian, and FreeBSD will also be available. In addition, prebuilt images can also be found (seen above), so users can get up-and-running quickly with Drupal, WordPress, or a simple LAMP stack.

If you’re interested in exploring Amazon Lightsail further, be sure to check out the related blog post of the company’s “Chief Evangelist” for AWS Jeff Barr, as well as the main product page.